Pete Thamel describes 'surprising' element of President Donald Trump reviving executive order on college sports

Reports that Donald Trump could sign an executive order in the coming days to usher in national standards for NIL across college athletics made headlines on Tuesday night. Trump has been at the forefront of the issue since taking office in January, and could chance the structure of NIL as we know it with one elongated signature.

ESPN’s college football insider Pete Thamel joined Paul Finebaum’s show on the SEC Network to explain what an executive order would mean for college athletics moving forward. Specifically, he touched on why it caught him off guard to read the initial report.

“This was surprising, because there really hadn’t been much chatter about an executive order for a while,” Thamel told Finebaum. “People were curious if the contents of this were going to be drastically different than when this was batted around last time.

“My understanding is there would be two takeaways from some type of executive order. One would be that it would have a commission to explore how the executive branch could help college athletics. Donald Trump does appear to be committed to pushing towards some type of solution in college athletics. And then there would be some sort of movement toward the NLRB having to designate college athletes not as employees.

Sources told On3’s Pete Nakos that they were skeptical that an executive order would be signed, while others expressed the notion that it could end up being signed. Nakos reported that language within the order could notably include barring athletes from being classified as employees.

The passing of the historic $2.8 billion House settlement in June allows for institutions to be able to pay their players directly through revenue sharing. Previously, individual athletes could only be compensated through third-party deals.

These changes were implemented beginning on July 1 and have been met with mixed reviews from critics. However, an executive order from the President could provide the structure that many coaches and athletic directors have called for since NIL was passed in 2021.

“So if there is an executive order sometime soon, which people aren’t expecting, I would not expect,” Thamel said. “It will be a headline because it’s the president, addressing college athletics, it would be something we have to talk about, but I don’t think it’s going to radically alter the landscape of where we are.”

It’s clear that leaders in college athletics are ready for some type of congressional action to be taken on Capital Hill. What that final order may look like remains to be seen.